Harvesting

The African Marigolds were taller than the second graders

Harvesting from our bountiful garden! We drew and picked indigo leaves, and the flowers from dyer's coreopsis, african marigolds and dyer's chamomile. We also observed our madder plants sprawling through all of the other plants and tried to avoid it's sticky barbs. Eventually we will harvest the madder roots, but they need to be a couple of years old before they will be large enough.

Harvesting Dyer's Coreopsis

Dyer's Chamomile

This whole bed was planted in the spring, and is fortunately on automatic watering. When we visited to check on growth in July the indigo was so large we were able to harvest most of the plant, which then grew back for our fall harvest. By the time the students came back the plants had all but taken over the paths surrounding the boxes.

Japanese Indigo (polygonum tinctora), grown from seeds purchased at the Fibershed Marketplace

Observational drawing of indigo plants